April 2, 2013

Poission d'Avril!!!

Bonjour chère famille!

I'm a little late this week to write, but for those of you who have already read Pono's email, she did a pretty good job of explaining how that works. Although, here we still had Easter on Sunday, but...we also have it on Monday. I think it has something to do with us using the metric system. Also, apparently I sounded pretty sad in my last email. Which, I mean, I wasn't suuper happy, but hey, life goes on. In any case, thank you all for your concern and your council, because it does help.

This week has been lots of fun. In fact, it's been pretty similar to last week, with the main difference being that I feel better about it. But! I still got to learn a couple new things. Let's talk easter! First of all happy easter to everyone! I hope you enjoyed the great american tradition of chocolate bunnies, because they got nothing of the sort here. Haha holidays in general for missionaries are...different. The best way I could sum it up is by quoting the missionary handbook, which says that "Holidays and sundays are great opportunities for finding people, because many families are together at home. Use these opportunities to the best of your ability..." or something like that. Basically, I celebrated Easter this year by going to Church (I got to sing in the branch choir! We sang "He is Risen" right out of the hymnbook. And that, not too terribly well), eating lunch at Sr. Jean-de-Dieu's house, and then knocking on a lot of doors. Fun fact-the missionary handbook was not written in Martinique. Or anywhere where people take siestes.

Then, on Monday, there is a great tradition here in which people celebrate Easter Monday by eating crab and rice. Fun fact for this week? Crab is so not worth the trouble. I mean, for those of you who haven't gotten the chance yet, they give you the whole thing still in its shell. So I get a plateful of crab, turn to Elder Johnston, and ask him "comment est-ce que ça se mange?" How do you eat this? Because I had no clue what to do with the stinking thing. His response? "Il faut écraser" We crush it. Hahah funnily enough, I spent the entire time thinking of the dinner scene in Shrek 2 when the dad crushes the crab and all the little pieces go everywhere. Turns out that was not a joke or an exaggeration. Before eating, each of the missionaries was given a towel to tie around our neck like a giant bib. Even that was only partially successful. But really. The meat was good, but it's kinda like the coconut thing. If you're going to put that much effort into getting at your food, it had better be the best thing you've ever tasted.

Oh, and the subject line-that is the name of "April Fool's Day" in french. I have no clue what that has to do with anything, but hey, I don't make the rules.

Fun fact, turns out the email place just closed. Guess that means I'm out of time.

I love you all!

-Elder Santos